Poco F4 GT review: Design, build quality, handling
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Poco F4 GT review
Design, build quality, handling
Poco may have opted out of the Gaming moniker for the F4 GT, as they did with the F3 GT, but they've kept the styling of the alter ego - down to some... questionable details that we'll get to in a bit. The essence is solid, no complaints there - a sculpted aluminum frame holds together two sheets of glass.
The front is Gorilla Glass Victus, so about as good as Corning makes. It's also flat, which Poco insists on pointing out, implying curved screens are a bad thing. There could very well be merit to that sentiment, particularly from the F4 GT's vantage point - they can be prettier than they are practical.
Curved screens also don't leave much room on the frame for buttons, and the Poco is pretty big on buttons. When unused, the two shoulder triggers are kept flush with the frame, only to be engaged by dedicated latches for each of them. Popping them out is among the more satisfying experiences you can have with mechanical phone controls and it's something you can do just for the kick of it - no gaming needed.
The latches have red dots to give a visual indication when the shoulder buttons are deployed, though it's more of a design accent than a functional touch - after all, the buttons do disappear into the frame when they're disengaged.
With the latches for the shoulder buttons and the buttons themselves, the right side of the phone is already pretty busy with controls, but there's another one here too - the power button/fingerprint reader combo. Located just a touch above the midpoint, it's in a perfect spot for operation with either the right thumb or the left index finger. It's equally quick and trouble free to unlock with either digit too.
The thing is, its placement is a little bit to convenient - so much so that you often end up touching it just by picking up the phone with no intention of unlocking it and you're greeted by a vibration that indicates a failed unlock attempt, because you obviously didn't touch it with one of the enrolled prints. There's an option in settings to work around that issue by requiring a click on the button for the fingerprint recognition to engage, and we'd go for that.
Since we mentioned vibration, it's worth pointing out that the Poco F4 GT has an excellent vibration motor. It's a very large X-axis unit and provides nicely nuanced haptics.
Going back to buttons, there's the volume rocker on the left of the phone, also just above the midpoint. It's notched just a little in the middle in what is a common styling element throughout the phone's design.
Right next to the volume rocker there's a mic pinhole - a most unusual placement, though one that makes sense in the context of the Poco. The logic is that you'll be holding the phone with both hands in landscape and possibly blocking the other two mics, while this location will remain unobstructed.
Also on this side of the handset is the SIM slot, high up near the top. A back-to-back dual nano SIM tray fits inside, but there's no option for storage expansion. There's a red gasket lining the tray, so some measures have been taken to ensure dust and water stay out of the Poco, but there's no formal IP rating.
Mic next to volume rocker
• Card tray
There are speaker openings both top and bottom and the dual slots also follow the same design theme present throughout. There are mics on each end of the phone too, and the top is also home to an IR blaster, while the bottom houses the USB-C port. There's no headphone jack, though the bundled dongle is the next best thing.
Top
• Bottom
We make our way to the back where the F4 GT packs plenty of personality. The mostly frosted glass panel is split in two by a glossy strip in the middle and two arrows pointing inward also have a slightly different finish. We're getting a 'sliding doors in spaceship' vibe.
The camera island has similar arrow-looking metal notches cutting into the sides of the glass with the words 'Freezing' and 'Speediest' written in them that give us pause. We'll try not to contemplate too hard on the linguistic motivation behind them, but we'll just point out that maybe the global Poco phone could have gone with different words there or none altogether. Then again, that was the situation with the Redmi K40 Gaming/Poco F3 GT pair, so perhaps customization from brand to brand is off the table.
Further in, alongside the arrows, there are thin RGB LED strips that can illuminate in different colors to show notifications, calls, or battery/charging status. Nice.
Outside of the camera island there's the dual LED flash, its cutout shaped like a lightning - another nice touch.
The Poco F4 GT measures 162.5mm x 76.7mm x 8.5mm and weighs in at 210g. So it's a big handset and a hefty one too, but not if you view it in the context of gaming phones, where its size is about what you'd call standard, while weight is actually on the low end of the spectrum.
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Design, build quality, handling
Poco may have opted out of the Gaming moniker for the F4 GT, as they did with the F3 GT, but they've kept the styling of the alter ego - down to some... questionable details that we'll get to in a bit. The essence is solid, no complaints there - a sculpted aluminum frame holds together two sheets of glass.
The front is Gorilla Glass Victus, so about as good as Corning makes. It's also flat, which Poco insists on pointing out, implying curved screens are a bad thing. There could very well be merit to that sentiment, particularly from the F4 GT's vantage point - they can be prettier than they are practical.
Curved screens also don't leave much room on the frame for buttons, and the Poco is pretty big on buttons. When unused, the two shoulder triggers are kept flush with the frame, only to be engaged by dedicated latches for each of them. Popping them out is among the more satisfying experiences you can have with mechanical phone controls and it's something you can do just for the kick of it - no gaming needed.
The latches have red dots to give a visual indication when the shoulder buttons are deployed, though it's more of a design accent than a functional touch - after all, the buttons do disappear into the frame when they're disengaged.
With the latches for the shoulder buttons and the buttons themselves, the right side of the phone is already pretty busy with controls, but there's another one here too - the power button/fingerprint reader combo. Located just a touch above the midpoint, it's in a perfect spot for operation with either the right thumb or the left index finger. It's equally quick and trouble free to unlock with either digit too.
The thing is, its placement is a little bit to convenient - so much so that you often end up touching it just by picking up the phone with no intention of unlocking it and you're greeted by a vibration that indicates a failed unlock attempt, because you obviously didn't touch it with one of the enrolled prints. There's an option in settings to work around that issue by requiring a click on the button for the fingerprint recognition to engage, and we'd go for that.
Since we mentioned vibration, it's worth pointing out that the Poco F4 GT has an excellent vibration motor. It's a very large X-axis unit and provides nicely nuanced haptics.
Going back to buttons, there's the volume rocker on the left of the phone, also just above the midpoint. It's notched just a little in the middle in what is a common styling element throughout the phone's design.
Right next to the volume rocker there's a mic pinhole - a most unusual placement, though one that makes sense in the context of the Poco. The logic is that you'll be holding the phone with both hands in landscape and possibly blocking the other two mics, while this location will remain unobstructed.
Also on this side of the handset is the SIM slot, high up near the top. A back-to-back dual nano SIM tray fits inside, but there's no option for storage expansion. There's a red gasket lining the tray, so some measures have been taken to ensure dust and water stay out of the Poco, but there's no formal IP rating.
Mic next to volume rocker
• Card tray
There are speaker openings both top and bottom and the dual slots also follow the same design theme present throughout. There are mics on each end of the phone too, and the top is also home to an IR blaster, while the bottom houses the USB-C port. There's no headphone jack, though the bundled dongle is the next best thing.
Top
• Bottom
We make our way to the back where the F4 GT packs plenty of personality. The mostly frosted glass panel is split in two by a glossy strip in the middle and two arrows pointing inward also have a slightly different finish. We're getting a 'sliding doors in spaceship' vibe.
The camera island has similar arrow-looking metal notches cutting into the sides of the glass with the words 'Freezing' and 'Speediest' written in them that give us pause. We'll try not to contemplate too hard on the linguistic motivation behind them, but we'll just point out that maybe the global Poco phone could have gone with different words there or none altogether. Then again, that was the situation with the Redmi K40 Gaming/Poco F3 GT pair, so perhaps customization from brand to brand is off the table.
Further in, alongside the arrows, there are thin RGB LED strips that can illuminate in different colors to show notifications, calls, or battery/charging status. Nice.
Outside of the camera island there's the dual LED flash, its cutout shaped like a lightning - another nice touch.
The Poco F4 GT measures 162.5mm x 76.7mm x 8.5mm and weighs in at 210g. So it's a big handset and a hefty one too, but not if you view it in the context of gaming phones, where its size is about what you'd call standard, while weight is actually on the low end of the spectrum.
#TechNewsPurple #purplereviews
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